The City Agriculture Office (CAO) on Thursday advised the 2,611 registered farmers here to sell rice instead of harvested palay to earn more.

In an interview, Shiela Nas, CAO officer-in-charge, said some farmers do not sell their harvested palay but mill it into rice which they sell to households and government employees. This way, they get PHP2,000 per sack of 50 kilograms or PHP40 per kg. of rice compared to the PHP19 they receive per one kg. of dry and clean palay.

Nas said to help the farmers, the CAO has put up two dryer facilities and pavements to be used for their harvested palay.

“Legazpi City has 700 hectares of farmland for inbred while 400 hectares for hybrid plantation of palay,” she said.

She noted that under inbred farming, farmers harvested 90 bags per hectare per cropping session while in hybrid farming, the farmers produced around 100-120 bags per hectare.

Nas also encouraged more farmers to enlist themselves in the Registry System for Basic Sector in Agriculture so they could avail of benefits from the government.

She said their office has distributed free palay seeds to all the farmers for their planting activities.

Nas also noted the government’s subsidy program where a sack of fertilizer worth PHP1,200 is offered to the farmers for only PHP600. (PNA)